This year I planted the lower grove next the pond at Sayes Court. It was now exceedingly cold, and a hard, long, frosty season, and the comet was very visible.
28th December, 1664. Some of my poor neighbors dined with me, and others of my tenants, according to my annual custom.
31st December, 1664. Set my affairs in order, gave God praise for His mercies the past year, and prepared for the reception of the Holy Sacrament, which I partook of the next day, after hearing our minister on the 4th of Galatians, verses 4, 5, of the mystery of our Blessed Savior's Incarnation.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This expression is, perhaps, hardly applicable to the fact of Evelyn's having witnessed a siege merely as a curious spectator. He reached the camp on the 2d, and left it on the 8th of August, 1641. It is certain, however, that during these six days he took his turn on duty, and trailed a pike.—See Diary.
[2] 2d October, 1665, he writes to the Lord Chancellor, Lord Arlington, Sir William Coventry, and Sir Philip Warwick, complaining of want of money for the prisoners: praying that while he and his brother Commissioners adventure their persons and all that is dear to them, in this uncomfortable service, they may not be exposed to ruin, and to a necessity of abandoning their care; and adding that they have lost their officers and servants by the pestilence, and are hourly environed with the saddest objects of perishing people. "I have," says he, "fifteen places full of sick men, where they put me to unspeakable trouble; the magistrates and justices, who should further us in our exigencies, hindering the people from giving us quarters, jealous of the contagion, and causing them to shut the doors at our approach."
[3] Dr. Walker had been a member of the Church of England, but had renounced it, and turned Papist.
[4] He was married at St. Thomas's, Southwark, 27th January, 1613. My sister Eliza was born at nine at night, 28th November, 1614; Jane at four in the morning, 16th February, 1616; my brother George at nine at night, Wednesday, 18th June, 1617; and my brother Richard, 9th November, 1622.—Note by Evelyn.
[5] The whole of this passage, so characteristic of the writer's tastes and genius, and both the paragraphs before and after it, are printed for the first time in this edition. Portions of the preceding description of Wotton are also first taken from the original; and it may not be out of place to add that, more especially in the first fifty pages of this volume, a very large number of curious and interesting additions are made to Evelyn's text from the Manuscript of the Diary at Wotton.